Thank you for your interest in the Difficult Dialogues National Resource Center's (DDNRC) 2025 Conference!
The DDNRC is committed to sharing knowledge, skills, stories, and practices that illustrate how dialogue can be a catalyst for envisioning new possibilities for collaboration and solidarity across differences. We value dialogue that is open, sustained, and structured within and across identity groups to critically engage participants toward greater understanding. We invite you to submit a proposal for a session at the upcoming national conference to be held on June 30 - July 2, 2025 at Washington University in St. Louis
This year’s conference theme is The Weight of Words: Navigating the Evolving Role of Dialogue in Polarized Times
We are living in an age of increasing polarization and anger in our public discourse often reinforces hostile modes of interaction with people who hold different viewpoints. This polarization has impacted our ability to work within and between communities. Dialogues help deepen understanding of personal, group and intergroup relationship issues. Many people across the nation and world are wrestling with questions about how to engage with others who do not share the same values and/or identities and feel helpless around authentic engagement when we can’t even agree on basic facts for an informed dialogue. Further, many wrestle with how we can support respectful, transformative dialogue in face-to-face meetings, online contexts, and in physical and virtual classrooms.
Proposals are due by February 10, 2025. Please submit one proposal per each session you are proposing.
We believe that dialogue and dialogic methods of engagement are critical for addressing society’s most pressing challenges. As such, we invite proposals for the June 2025 conference that align with the following themes: 1) Building Community, 2) Dialogue to Foster Change, and the 3) Benefits of Dialogue. Further context for these themes are as follow:
Building Community. In the aftermath of national elections, our country is more polarized than ever before. We invite proposals that help conference participants learn about how dialogue and dialogic methods can encourage people with differing values and identities to enter and remain engaged in dialogue, even when they do not go smoothly. We invite proposals that help us create space and opportunity for developing trust in an effort to build stronger relationships within and between communities.
Dialogue to Foster Change. As our country, and institutions of tertiary education, continue to reflect on the impacts of structural racism, climate change, and other social issues, we invite proposals that assist conference participants in using dialogue and dialogic methods to foster social change.
The Benefits of Dialogue. Research has documented the educational impacts of the presence of diversity on college and university campuses, as well as how dialogue (e.g., Intergroup dialogue or IGD) amplifies these benefits. We invite proposals that help identify the benefits of dialogue so that practitioners can continue to ground their work, and justify the acquisition of institutional resources to build infrastructures to support dialogue within differing institutional settings.
Please submit your proposal via this form. Your proposal will include the following components:
- A title (no more than 15 words)
- A tentative 100 word abstract or description of your presentation to be included in the conference program
- A 250-300 word description of your proposal, how you will engage participants in your session, a summary of the content of the presentation, and the presentation's connection to one or more of the conference themes
Proposals are due no later than February 10, 2025. You will be notified about acceptance by no later than March 3, 2025.
NOTE: Although we are not able to offer funding to presenters/panelists, we hope that the opportunity to participate in, and contribute to, this groundbreaking National Conference will enrich your professional life and work.
